Frederick VII of Denmark

The Danish writer Johan Ludvig Heiberg, having in 1817 taken his degree, had in 1819 gone abroad with a government grant.

He proceeded to Paris, and spent the next three years there with his father, the political writer Peter Andreas Heiberg.

In 1822 he had published his drama Nina and had been made professor of the Danish language at the University of Kiel, where he had delivered a course of lectures, comparing the Scandinavian mythology as found in the Edda with the poems of Oehlenschläger.

These lectures had been published in German in 1827.

In 1825, Heiberg had returned to Copenhagen for the purpose of introducing to the Danish stage the vaudeville, of which he has composed a great number, including King Solomon and George the Hatmaker (1825); April Fools (1826); A Story in Rosenborg Garden (1827); many other will follow.

He takes his models from the French theater, blending the words and the music with extraordinary skill, but the subjects and the humor are essentially Danish and even topical.

Meanwhile he is producing dramatic work of a more serious kind; in 1828 he brings out the romantic comedy Elves' Hill (Danish: Elverhøi); written for the wedding of Frederik Carl Christian (later Frederik VII) and Vilhelmine Marie, and premiered five days later.

The play, with music by Friedrich Kuhlau, utilizes a combination of the folklore of the Elven king of Stevns and a story of swapped children; King Christian IV is cast as a sort of detective, who unravels the mystery. (While Kuhlau is generally regarded as a minor composer, in Denmark his opera is regarded as the national opera, and its overture enjoys particular popularity.

Since the premiere, Elves' Hill, considered the first Danish national play, has been performed more than a thousand times, a record, at the Royal Danish Theater.)

Danish nationalists believe that Schleswig, but not Holstein, should be a part of Denmark, as Schleswig contains a large number of Danes, while Holstein does not.

German nationalists believe that Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg should remain united, and their belief that Schleswig and Holstein should not be separated has led to the two duchies being referred to as Schleswig-Holstein.

Schleswig has become a particular source of contention, as it contains a large number of Danes, Germans and North Frisians.

Another cause of the war is the legally questionable change to the rules of ducal succession in the duchies.

Denmark includes the Duchy of Schleswig, and the king of Denmark rules the duchies of Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg within the German Confederation at the beginning of 1848.

The majority of the ethnic Germans in Denmark live in these areas.

Germans make up a third of the country's population, and the three duchies are behind half of Denmark's economy.

The Napoleonic Wars, which had ended in 1815, had fanned both Danish and German nationalism.

The newly simplified Europe of 1848 seems on the verge of fragmentation.

King Christian VIII of Denmark dies in January, and the Zollverein (German Customs Union) questions the legitimacy of the female inheritor of the throne.

The late Danish King's only legitimate son, the future Frederick VII, seems unable to beget heirs, thus the duchies appeared likely to pass to the rule of the House of Oldenburg, which might have resulted in a division of Denmark.

Accordingly, Christian VIII had decreed, on July 8, 1846, a change to the succession law in the duchies to allow succession through the female line.

The implementation of this law is illegal.

...Holstein declare themselves independent of Denmark on the same day that the French Second Republic comes into being, March 24.

The Schleswig-Holsteiners, being inspired from the successes of the French in the revolution in Paris of February 1848, had sent a deputation to Copenhagen to demand the immediate recognition by King Frederick VII of a joint state of Schleswig-Holstein previous to its admittance into the German Confederation.

King Frederick's reply had admitted the right of Holstein as a German confederate state to be guided by the decrees of the Frankfurt diet, but declared that he had neither "the power, right, nor wish" to incorporate Schleswig into the confederation.

Seven thousand Schleswig-Holsteinish soldiers under General Krohn had occupied Flensborg on March 31.

Over even thousand Danish soldiers had landed east of the city, and Krohn, fearing he will be surrounded, has ordered his forces to withdraw.

The Danes are able to reach the Schleswig-Holsteiners before they are able to retreat, and the subsequent Battle of Bov on April 9 is a Danish victory.

The diet recognizes the provisional government of Schleswig on April 12 and commissions Prussia to enforce its decrees.

General Wrangel is also ordered to occupy Schleswig.

The Germans had embarked on this course of participation in the Schleswig-Holstein War alone, without the European powers.

The other European powers are united in opposing any dismemberment of Denmark, even Austria refusing to assist in enforcing the German view.

Swedish troops land to assist the Danes; Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, speaking with authority as head of the senior Gottorp line, points  out to King Frederick William IV of Prussia the risks of a collision.

Great Britain, though the Danes had rejected her mediation, threatens to send her fleet to assist in preserving the status quo.

The fact that Prussia had entered the war on behalf of the revolutionary forces in Schleswig-Holstein creates a great number of ironies.

The newly elected Frankfurt Diet tends to support the incursion into the Schleswig-Holstein War while King Frederick William does not.

The Prussians score a series of victories in April and May, until the streak is broken on June 5 with a Danish victory over Germans in battle at Dybbøl Hill.

Other battles follow in June.